One remarkable academic study from Bernile and Lyandres shows there are inefficiencies in publicly listed soccer clubs' stocks which can be exploited. Investors systematically overvalue stocks before important matches as they believe in positive outcomes. Teams often draw or lose a game and stocks incur negative returns. Aimple trading strategy could be created by shorting soccer clubs' stocks before important matches. A complicated variant of this strategy (not stated in this version, but theoretically feasible) could be created by using booking shops to hedge equity market transactions.

   Performance and risk characteristics of this unconventional strategy looks interesting – backtest indicates more then 40% p.a. performance. Although the estimated 50% volatility isn't low, this strategy still offers a compelling Sharpe ratio of 0.76.

   The ource paper can be found on the following web page: http://69.175.2.130/~finman/Turin/Papers/soccer_nov30_2008.pdf

   Our strategy overview with extracted trading rules and hypothetical performance chart with probability bands can be accessed here: www.quantpedia.com/Screener/Details/108